the project

The classrooms are designed in a way that they generate a playground, open and intimate towards the inside and with the vertical closure towards the outside giving security for the entire complex of classrooms. The setting of the buildings is defined by an orientation that enables protection against the hot summer sun, and gets the much lower sun rays during winter for passive heating. The entire building is designed to respond to sustainable criteria, such as local building materials, used in an efficient way, using natural heating and cooling for an ideal climate in summer and winter without additional requirements. The structure of the buildings is an innovative timber frame, enabling high flexibility for the layout of the buildings. The facades of the classrooms can be realised in a series of materials in order to respond to the possibilities and availability of materials in the township.

what its all about

a project focused as much on process as on object


Idea:
With the involvement of volunteer students from Europe and the partner institutions in SA design and build a sustainable grade ‘R’ school as a community project in the Ivory Park township north of Johannesburg/South Africa.

Who we are:
20 volunteer students from 5 Architectural Faculties (Vienna, Salzburg, Trieste, Venice, Florence) and from the International Development Faculty of Vienna, under the leadership of Dustin Tusnovics, from the Technical University of Vienna, who has already realized two design and build projects in South Africa and Marlene Wagner as assistant.
The partners in South Africa are the NPOs Education Africa and Shanduka – Adopt a School Foundation who have identified the project for the Kanana Primary School.


How we do it:
As the entire project is based on volunteers dedicated to an idea, the project can only be realised with the help of donors and sponsors. The students pay for travel and transport from/to South Africa and within, plus the costs for food and beverages,
our partner NGOs will find sponsors for accommodation, do all the organisational work to make all this happen. Our aim is to create a transdisciplinary process by involving different educational institutions, local organisations and the community to provide an exchange of knowledge, skills and culture.
We are therefore looking for sponsors to finance the building costs for the realisation within the next year.

the site

The Kanana (paradise!) primary school (founded 2001) is situated in ivory park a region in the north west of johannesburg. The region is marked by 50% of unemployment and about 70% live under the povertyline. The govermental school is surrounded by a typical residential township area aswell as informal living and serves a number of 2 368 learners from kindergarten to 7th grade. As newly implemented in the compulsory schoolprogram grade 0 known as grade R, a lot of schools lack of the infrastructure and classrooms to comply this.

The existing school infrastrcture offers 61 teachers, 43 classes including prefabricated huts, which will be upgraded by shanduka and a big sport ground.

The school needs an extension of 5 classrooms and a service block with kitchen and toilets which will be placed inside the school next to the existing buildings on municipal land.

With the recommandation of our partner Education Africa and the local Adopt a School Foundation we are asked to design and build these new grade R classrooms to provide space for about 80 to 100 kids at the age of 6 years in the outset stage of their educational career.

...work in progress...

S-HOUSE | SUSTAINABLE BUILDING

Sustainable construction can be defined as follows: Not only the building concepts but also the components and materials which are used have to meet the present needs o the users without burdening future generations with wast disposal problems or prolonged use of an out-dated building design.

Thus sustainable architecture means: form follows ethics, i.e. the design is the result of a careful consideration of functions, materials and their life-cycle performance including long term perspectives, present and future human needs and social aspects. This is the basic principle under which the S-House, a passive solar house made of renewable resources, is constructed.

Passive solar house technology is already well known. Building materials based on renewable resources are present in some areas (e.g. wood). But the combination of both is quite unique. This combination is made visible by the S-House, an office and demonstration building at the Center for Appropriate Technology in Böheimkirchen / Austria. After a careful planing phase the building was put up in early 2005. In this paper the process of the S-House building phase is described. Details of the building are mentioned in addition to important background information.

The challenge of the S-House-project consists in combining the high energy standard of passive solar house technology (less than 15 kWh/m2a) with the use of renewable resources and herewith to benefit from the advantages of both.

s-house.at

photos of the visit to the S-HOUSE

Robert WIMMER Dr., Hannes HOHENSINNER Dipl. Ing., Manfred DRACK Dr.

GrAT – Center for Appropriate Technology at the Vienna University of Technology. Wiedner Hauptstrasse

8-10. 1040 Vienna, Austria. Phone: ++43 1 58801 49523. Fax: ++43 1 58801 49533. E-mail: contact@grat.at

Monday morning is the workshop started!